Amazing, Entertaining, and Sometimes Troubling Quotes About Maine

I’ve been writing a Quotable Sportsman column for The Maine Sportsman for five years, and over that period have reported on amazing, entertaining, and sometimes troubling quotes. From time to time I’m dipping back into those to share them with you in this column.

If I came another 10 years and didn’t get a bear, I’d still come back. It’s worth every penny.

Tommy Henley, a Tennessee bowhunter, bearless in his six years of hunting in Maine. Deirdre Fleming story, Maine Sunday Telegram, September 9, 2012.

A mother of 13 from Brownville offered a friend money to kill her husband and make it look like a hunting accident.

Every single one that I found and that the other guys found, the show was just starting to come off them and they were totally untouched so it’s obvious it’s not a predator kill. You could see ticks right on them.

Eric Hall who with buddy Jerold Mason found more than 60 dead moose in the spring from the upper Androscoggin River Valley to the Jackman Region. Terry Karkos story, Lewiston Sun Journal, December 2 2011.

Fur trappers like myself are becoming rare. When I started buying fur 35 years ago, there were 150 buyers in Maine. There are five left.

Neil Olson who has trapped 10,000 beaver, more than 3000 red fox, and 1400 coyotes since 1973. Lewiston Sun Journal, November 20, 2011.

I just couldn’t believe it. When I was a kid, if someone had fallen in that river we would have sprayed them from head to toe with disinfectant. Now kids are swimming in it. It’s a remarkable thing.

George Marvin, who sailed from Florida and up the cleaned-up Penobscot River to attend the American Folk Festival in Bangor. Renee Ordway story, Bangor Daily News, August 25, 2012.

He was in fish heaven.

John Belvin of The Junction Store in Brownville after finding a mink in his tank of live bait. Lewiston Sun Journal, February 2011.

It’s a very emotional debate. People do it and swear its positive for the deer and it doesn’t matter what the science and the department say. That is a battle we are not going to win.

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About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters.
Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014.
In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.

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George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters.
Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014.
In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.